Hashtag draws inspiration from Baroque art and is, in essence, a comment on the ills of social media. Baroque art pieces are stylistically complicated and contradicting, and they aim at causing intense emotions to spectators by activating the senses while Baroque art was promoted and used by the Catholic Church as a means of proselytizing. Comparing Baroque art and the use of photography in social media some parallels can be drawn, and it is these parallels that Hashtag gives form and shape to. Crucial to the conception and the creation of the series was art critic’s, Rosalind Krauss, observation that photography in the age of social media has many common elements to Plato’s allegory about the Cave, which describes a world of shadows that are perceived to be the one absolute truth. Plato’s description of shadows brings to mind Baroque’s techniques of sfumato and chiaroscuro with their elaborate use of shadows, bringing together all the elements that constitute and inspired Hashtag.
Melacholia
The Translator
Omniscience
Cross my Soul
St. Like
The Last Social Supper
Entrapment
Chameleon
Obsession
The Judge